Character animation in progress

[bazzajunior]

I'm currently creating an animation for an event up in Inverness for the 6th March (the event is in relation to a new '3 virtues' monument). The general premise of the scene is that a donut is hanging from a piece of string and the protagonist has seen it and wants it!

The general character animation is needing some tidying up but it's hopefully getting close to a finished piece (not taking into account textures, facial animation and props in the scenes).

The animation is split into 6 parts (with part 6 still being worked on):
Scene 1 (http://www.barrycollard.co.uk/videos/1st_scene.avi)
Scene 2 (http://www.barrycollard.co.uk/videos/2nd_scene.avi)
Scene 3 (http://www.barrycollard.co.uk/videos/3rd_scene.avi)
Scene 4 (http://www.barrycollard.co.uk/videos/4th_scene.avi)
Scene 5 (http://www.barrycollard.co.uk/videos/5th_scene.avi)
Scene 6 (http://www.barrycollard.co.uk/videos/6th_scene.avi)

The videos are all in just the default XSI AVI output (Cinepak)

My personal view is that the walk cycle in the first scene needs tweaking (maybe a bit faster) and that in the second scene the exclamation! needs speeding up.

There's jumps and object pass throughs on the props but these will be fixed when the final ones are added.

I'd appreciate any feedback http://community.softimage.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[farhaad_yousefi]

hi..
it's nice to meet another charactor animator that works with xsi..
it is a very energetic charractor and you have good decopaj
but i have some tips to tell you..
firstly you have a very active sonic like charactor so you need very fast and fine keyframing.. and surly a fare amount of motion blur in you rendering pass(to show the effect of sharp keys)
..
most of all you'll bee needing "anticipation" witch is a very important parameter in the fantastic animations..
..
and i belief you defenetly need facial animation cause the face have some close up shots and needs to act properly ..
other than that ..it's a grate work and i look forward to c d results..keep it up..

[franky]

would you mind compiling the 6 movies into 1 so its possible to view it right away? i would like to check it out and give some ideas without sacrificing my time :)

[bazzajunior]

Here's the scenes merged into one Windows Media file:

Merged videos (http://www.barrycollard.co.uk/videos/Merged_scenes_1.wmv)

The videos haven't had any tweaks done as of yet (my wife and daughter are the top priority on weekends) but hopefully I'll have some finished articles by the end of the week

Again, any critiques or comments welcome http://community.softimage.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Nightwalker]

Hi, nice concept ;) . I think though you could refine your workflow, using steped keys for the blocking fase, but that's a personal preference...

Aniway here's a link:

http://amritd.blogspot.com/2007/03/animomania-my-workflow-tutorial.html

hope it helps :)

[franky]

its a very nice start and funny little story :)

some ideas that i have are:

- the 1st shot is not very clear yet. it should set the character in its world and on its purpose. how about showing him, holding his noisy tummy, showing the audience that he is hungry. maybe also make him more fat ;) would add to the joke in the end.
then let him look up, realizing the donut, opening the eyes wide of joy and THEN the camera pulls back and reveals the sweet. let him jump out of frame with much energy and power in anticipation of the yummy sweet.

- try 1 and 3 are cool, but 2 and 4 are just mirrored copies. that doesn't work well. create new ways of getting there, like a salto with stretched body to reach it or something else.

- the pose at at "heureka, i got it" is very much cliche. maybe you find something better there or make him look around in pain and finding the box....

- when he climbs on the box your framing is a bit off. aniamte the camera or frame it better. all the action is in the down left corner.

- end is cool. i just didnt understood what the last action is ment to be. when he look fast back to the donut. model/rig and animate a LONG tounge that sucks the donut in at the end :)) just an idea...

[bazzajunior]

Thanks to everyone for the help so far. I've got just over a week left now until my deadline so I'll be looking to implement some of the ideas (time permitting).

The start will have some opening titles to give a better idea of what is happening.

The ending is now fixed in my mind- Rudiger will now snatch up the donut, take a big bite and look gleefully into the camera whilst chewing.

Once I've got the final scene done I'll go over the rest of the scenes to clean them up and smooth out the animations/tweak bits here and there.

please keep offering advice in the meantime :)

[Helli]

Just for your next animations, get the "Animators Survival Kit", it's THE bibel for Animators :)

Someone posted a tutorial there, yea it's not bad, still it's wrong at some places in choosing the poses. Also check out this site:
http://www.keithlango.com/wordpress/?page_id=226

[mrmojorisin]

You have to work in your poses, right now the poses of the character are not strong poses. Check the silhouette of the character.
And one advice about the preview file, do it in a .mov (qtime) format, its much better, and can be played frame to frame...